One thing that makes my job so much easier on a wedding day is when brides have a wedding coordinator! Since wedding coordinators handle the organizational details of the day, this frees me up to focus primarily on photography, which is what I was hired for! Having a wedding coordinator allows me to focus on being creative and getting the best shots possible on a wedding day! Last year, I had the privilege of shooting a wedding where Rachel Dirksen of WCRLD was the day-of coordinator. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated Rachel being present on the wedding day! She was an absolute pleasure to work with and was extremely professional, friendly, and incredibly organized. Due to her talent and expertise, the day could not have run more smoothly! Having a day-of coordinator present allowed me to focus on being creative and getting the best shots possible! Recently I had the chance to photograph some head shots for Rachel and I asked if she’d share her top reasons why brides should hire a day-of coordinator. Rachel is going to take it away from here!
Should I hire a Day-Of Wedding Coordinator?
YES! It’s that simple. And here is why…
1. So you can focus on what’s really important on your wedding day!
It’s the biggest day of your entire life! (or at least one of them) It’s the day you pledge your life and love to the one who stole your heart, let’s focus on that. As fun as a wedding can be to plan, or maybe not at all for you, when you’re day comes, you don’t want to be worrying about all the details that you’ve planned into fruition. You want to worry about what brought the day about, your love! And the support and love of those who love you witnesses your union. Let the coordinator take all the details away from you- when the cake will arrive, what order bridesmaids will walk down the aisle, did the caterer remember that Aunt Ida’s allergic to nuts? so you can enjoy your day for it’s true meaning. You planned this perfect day, so now enjoy it!
2. So all your guests can enjoy themselves!
I ask every couple what are the 3 most important things to them on their wedding day. Without fail, one of the top 3 things is that they want their guests, all the people they love, to have fun and enjoy themselves. A coordinator will help you create a timeline that makes the wedding flow with ease, creating appropriately marked out times for the various and extensive programming that weddings hold. They also change things as needed on your day to make sure the unforeseen things don’t completely throw off the flow.
3. Because there are always last minute changes or problems, it’s life!
You need a person who will pull all the pieces together. No matter how much you plan, you can never anticipate every emergency or plan away every mishap, it’s just life being messy and people being human. You need a coordinator that will problem solve on your behalf on the day-of the wedding. Your coordinator will have all the details about the wedding to make the best call possible or will know who to contact to make that call.
4. There are so many people involved!
Each vendor needs to coordinate and work with each other at various points throughout your wedding day. The coordinator becomes the liaison between all vendors, making sure they know who is responsible for which piece of the puzzle. This keeps vendors happy and doing their job well. It also gives them someone to ask questions.
There is also your bridal party and your family. The coordinator makes sure all those involved in your wedding are where they are supposed to be, creating a fun and stress-free day for them as well. These are your most important guests, and they should also focus on the meaning of your very important day.
5. There are so many details!
You may be a DIY bride and you have decor coming out of your ears. You may have hired out everything because you either aren’t crafty or don’t have the time. You may be somewhere in-between. Whatever the case, you have also been dealing with all the vendors– questions like what kind of cake? are you getting make-up done? what gifts are you buying for your maids or men? how are people getting to the wedding from the hotel, will you provide transportation? should we get flip flops for the girls at the wedding for dancing? etc. The different pieces that make up a wedding feel endless. These details swarm your head leading up to the wedding. Having a coordinator gives you someone to dump the details onto. Your coordinator helps take this burden out of your head, organizes it, and takes care of it so your wedding can be exactly as you planned it to be. I could go on and on about why it is necessary to have a coordinator. I wouldn’t be in this business if I didn’t see this as a real need. I’ve heard from many former brides that they wished they had a coordinator, so ask around as well! I plan events for a living, mostly non-wedding events, and act as the day-of coordinator as well. I couldn’t imagine planning an event and not being there to run it on the day, in essence leaving it up to chance that it all goes smoothly. It’s not realistic, even being a professional planner to plan away problems and plan people into perfection.
The unique things I find about weddings as events are that 1. they have so much programming going on in a short period of time 2. they are extremely important and emotional to the client because it’s a life-altering, once -in-lifetime, wonderfully joyous day 3. there are so many people that are involved that are also super emotional because of their relationship with the bride & groom and whose most important role is just being a support system that day. All these things make weddings so incredibly amazing and but also high intensity. Therefore…
Give yourself a break, you’ll need it for your big day, and hire a day-of coordinator. You won’t regret it.